Photo Credit: Colby Spence
Following last night’s 7-2 beat down in the season/home opener at the hands of the Leafs at Bell MTS Place, the Jets were back on the ice today at the IcePlex as they get ready for a three game road trip out west. They will kick things off in Calgary on Saturday.
Via Mitchell Clinton of Jets TV here are the lines and D pairs used at the IcePlex:
Ehlers-Scheifele-Wheeler
Perreault-Little-Laine
Matthias-Lowry-Petan
Tanev-Copp-Armia
Extra Forward: Dano
Kulikov-Trouba
Morrissey-Byfuglien
Enstrom-Myers
Chiarot-Poolman
Mason & Hellebuyck
The players were given a 20+ minute bag skate at the conclusion of practice today according to Mike McIntyre of the Winnipeg Free Press. However coach Maurice has since clarified indicating that this was merely a “conditioning skate” and not a bag skate.
Coach Maurice did provide a health update to Matt Hendricks who is on injured reserve after he blocked some shots in pre-season. Hendricks will be making the road trip with the Jets but won’t be available until “Van at the earliest” according the Jets bench boss. He added that he didn’t have an answer as to “whether he will be available”.
The key message made by coach Maurice came at the conclusion of his scrum when he was asked about nipping the poor defensive play in the bud. He indicated “We’ll deal with this everyday all year. Because this franchise doesn’t move forward until it can defend. You can put all the talent in the world on the ice and you’re not winning a damn thing until you got a really good comfort level to defend.”.
We shall see how that message is received as the team will resume practice tomorrow at IcePlex (11 am) before they leave for Calgary.
Post-practice audio:
Jacob Trouba
Bryan Little
Dustin Byfuglien
Coach Maurice: What would he call the skate at the end of today’s skate? What was the message to the team today? What kind of emotions does he go through after last night? Did he see the response he needed to from his team today? Is there some advantage to starting season on the road? Players getting away from the game plan. Any update on Hendricks? Nic Petan coming into the lineup? Improving net front presence. On the Jets making contact. Swapping Ehlers and Perreault. Nipping this in the bud.
All audio courtesy of TSN 1290 Winnipeg.
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